Zuda

[The Emperor]

I brought this up over on the 2000 AD forum but wanted to throw it open to British comics creators in general (and anyone else passing by too ;) ).

Zuda is DC's web comic imprint pitched as a context with the winner getting paid to tell their story on their site (with an eye on it being published in print if it proves popular). British comics creators tended to be brought up on a diet of tightly-told tales so 8 pages for your initial entry seems luxurious. This would tend to give us a small advantage on that front, however, there haven't been that many Brits in the running but there are a few people around who seem interested in giving it a shot, if only for the opportunity to show off your work to a larger audience. So the general idea is to help get creators together and give the what support they need to make a good showing.

However, it is also not just down to quality and a degree of marketing and publicity always helps so I am also drawing together ideas on this angle too so we can get a better idea of how best to work this angle.

So if anyone is inetrested or is already preparing their entry then let us know and we'll do what we can (hopefully staggering entires so everyone doesn't go for the same round dilutin promotion efforts).

Also if you have any ideas or thoughts that could help then throw them in here.

[John Freeman]

Interesting - are you suggesting some kind of Zuda pitch area on the web or here on the forum? How would that work?

I like what Colin_YWNA did, posted a draft strip on Picassa (http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/colin.ynwa/TheThracian#), and then people commented it on the 2000AD forum.

But you could do this: create a Blog (using Blogger or Wordpress, say) and then invite those who are interested in having their work commented on become contributors. Blogger allows up to 100 contributors, more than enough for this. Folk could then comment on the work direct - the blog could either be invite only or open.

Ultimately, any finished work could be imported to another blog for "Final Versions" that had been submitted to Zuda.

Another option might be to create a ZudaPitch Ning Forum?

[The Emperor]

The basic idea is that there are a few people who have given the idea of submitting something to Zuda some serious though but for various reasons nothing came of this. It struck me that having somewhere to draw together interest and ideas might help keep the momentum up that would see some of these ideas making it to the submission stage.

There are clearly a lot of places where help and ideas would be useful both before and after submission (proof reading, matching up the talent, giving feedback on art, then beyond that, ideas on publicity, getting people interested and engaged on the drive to the finishing line). Clearly there is no substitute for a good story well told but fine tuning and help could make a lot of difference. There is definitely enough talent around to ensure there are some serious contenders.

So my initial idea is to start the thread and see what the interest is like and what help we can provide and take it from there. If things took off we could certainly look into separate threads here, or a blog or specific forum - if things really got rolling they might want to start a production blog to focus on their work but there would still need to be something somewhere that draws it all together. That would depend on the interest and how well things go.

[Rachele Aragno]

Hi...I'm really interest in zuda,,,Can you explain me well?

[The Emperor]

Zuda is DC Comics webcomic contest. Each month they pick 10 stories of 8 pages, post them online where people can read them and vote for their favourite one. The winner then gets to continue their story for 52 pages.

Although they do pay for what they publish the good thing is the exposure your work can get and the chance to show what you can do to a wide audience.

If you have any other questions then ask away.